According to an electric vehicle disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 09-309343 (hereinafter referred to as “JP 09-309343 A”), a battery cluster 20 is disposed below a driver seat 6 (FIG. 2).
A vehicle 1000 disclosed in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2006/0096797 (hereinafter referred to as “US 2006/0096797 A1”) has a first battery pack 1900 that is a 12-volt lead storage battery, and a second battery pack 2000 that is a lithium ion battery ([0032], [0033]). The first battery pack 1900 is disposed in an engine compartment ([0033]). The second battery pack 2000 is provided beneath the base of a front passenger seat 1120 of the vehicle 1000 ([0034]).
According to an electric vehicle disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 08-002405 (hereinafter referred to as “JP 08-002405 A”), a lead battery 25 is disposed above a fuel tank 24, and a sodium-sulfur battery 28 is disposed behind a partition 27 (FIG. 4, FIG. 5, [0011], [0012]).
According to U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2007/0089442 (hereinafter referred to as “US 2007/0089442 A1”), a rear air-conditioning unit 2000 and a battery pack 3000 are provided on a floor panel 4000 and below an upper back panel 5000 (FIG. 1, [0052]). The battery pack 3000 is substantially in the shape of a rectangular parallelepiped (FIGS. 1 and 2).
According to a vehicle 1 disclosed in U. S. Patent Application Publication No. 2011/0132676 (hereinafter referred to as “US 2011/0132676 A1”), the front side of a battery 12 that supplies electric power to a motor 11 is disposed forwardly of a dash panel 18, and the rear side of the battery 12 is disposed in a tunnel 22 that extends in a longitudinal direction of the vehicle (Abstract, FIGS. 1 and 2).